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Seven Reasons Why OLED TVs Could Really Be Real This Time

The Consumer Electronics Show is taking place in Las Vegas this week and, as usual, vendors are showing off televisions made from Organic Light Emitting Diodes. It’s as predictable as a celebrity appearance by a Star Trek veteran.

LG and Samsung both showed off 55-inch OLED TVs due later in 2012. The screens are only a few millimeters thick and provide astounding color contrast and clarity. Granted, the TVs might cost $8,000 when they hit Best Buy, but both South Korean vendors, who truly set the agenda for the TV industry, say these are real products that will come out.

“The most exciting TVs at the show from both a design and picture quality standpoint are the two 55-inch OLED TVs announced by LG and Samsung,” David Katzmaier, who oversees TV coverage for CNET, tells me. “Their prices will be astronomical by LCD and plasma standards, but their images are clearly better and they can be as thin as five millimeters. They seem like disembodied images in person.”

But, yes, OLED TVs have taken their time. I saw my first OLED TV back in 2007 in Japan. Since then, a grand total of two OLED TVs have hit the market: an 11-inch one from Sony that cost more than $2,000 and a 15-incher from LG that cost around $2,700. So that’s a few thousand dollars for TVs with screens smaller than most notebook displays. The same goes for LED lights: the trade show demos far outnumber the actual products.

But don’t give up hope. Here are seven real reasons why OLED TVs will be a big deal in a few years.

1. The Manufacturing Technology Steadily Improves. OLEDs are essentially transparent sheets of plastic that give off light when zapped with little bit of electricity. This partly explains why they are energy efficient and thin. The problem has been making large OLEDs. Samsung and many others have inserted OLED screens into cell phones, but not in notebook, tablets or TVs much because the manufacturing yields on the large panels has been terrible.

It is also difficult to keep moisture out of OLED panels, raising the specter of customer backlash.

The 55-inch TVs underscore the steady progress on the tool sets required to produce large OLEDs. A good portion of this work is being performed in-house, but third parties have also come up with tool ideas. A start-up called Kateeva (read first story ever on them here) is working on a tool that creates large OLEDs with something akin to ink jet printer nozzles.

2. OLEDs Are Actually Not Late. I asked a number of companies—Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi—at CES in 2008 when we might start seeing OLED TVs priced for the mainstream. 2015 nearly all of them said. So the industry has three years to whack the price of the $8,000 TVs coming out in the second half. Three years: that’s nearly two cycles of Moore’s Law. Going by the usual rules of thumb, that means manufacturers might be able to pop out $2,000 55-inch OLED TVs for the 2015 holidays. Crazier things have happened.

3. Efficiency. OLEDs have the potential to be 100 percent efficient, say researchers at USC and other universities. While the industry isn’t there yet, the headroom gives OLED the opportunity to beat LED LCDs in lumens/images per watt and will help the industry meet any energy efficiency regulations. Car makers want electric cars to increase their fleet mileage. OLEDs will do the same for the consumer electronics industry.

4. Lateral Markets. OLEDs can also be fashioned into lights. You can transform entire walls, and even windows, into light fixtures. You may not buy them for your home right away, but the W Hotel and other hipster establishments will to create architectural showpieces. The existence of other markets will increase the investment in tool sets and manufacturing. (Regulations will also help drive the OLED lighting market.)

Conversely, TVs have also been a springboard for new types of lighting. Luxim, which makes plasma bulbs for streetlights and public spaces, started as a supplier for the projection TV industry and TV manufacturers remain one of the most ardent purchasers of red, green and blue LEDs.

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It would be useful if you included some sense of the total size of potential energy savings, which will determine its significance. Here you would have to make an estimate of how many screens there are that are candidates for replacement by OLED’s. Then find or estimate what percent of the time they are turned on, how much power they use; this can be used to calculate equivalent consumption by OLED’s.

There is more, namely the amount of energy invested in manufacturing the devices – not easy to calculate, but potentially enough to alter the conclusions.

I thought about that, but the variables get mind boggling. What if consumers start to opt for larger screens (despite history) or put more TVs in more rooms of the house. Then consumption could go up. Let me see if I can scrounge something up.

OLED looks like really promising technology. Just like the first 40 inch plasma TV, which was priced near $10,000, this will be far too expensive for most, for the next few years. Sooner or later — hopefully sooner — these will be affordable. Until then, plasma and LED back-lit TVs will have to do. Craig Herberg

I get the whole “40-46 inch” sweet spot. I have a 32″ LED/LCD in an 11 x 15 room, only it looks bigger because of the image clarity at a distance and because the bevel is so thin (it is almost all screen). Based on that, I think consumers (in smaller spaces like apartments) will continue to look at that size.

I know it is my intention to move the 32″ into a smaller bedroom and replace it with a 40-46″ that will look “huge” in that 11 x 15 space.

My point is that [preferred] size may still create a revenue cap after a time. Well unless prices come WAY down and I can just hang a 60″ OLED on a wall with paper clips for under $2K :)

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I totally agree with this. OLED TVs are definitely for real. I have seen some insane LG OLED TVs at the 2012 CES this year and judging by the picture, who cares if 55inches is too small for some. It isnt for most. The picture quality on the LG OLED TV is by far superior than any other larger tv or 4k reso tv out righ tnow.

What I really like from this message is the efficiency of the LG OLED TV. The writer says it is 100% efficient. That is awesome. No wonder people are talking about how the LG 55 inch OLED TV screens are only a few millimeters thick and provide astounding color contrast and clarity.